Local podcaster garners national honors
A local podcaster beat tough competition to win a national award Wednesday night.
“Stacking Benjamins,” Texas-side resident Joe Saul-Sehy’s personal finance advice show, won Best Business Podcast at the 2017 Academy of Podcasters Awards in Anaheim, Calif.
Judges chose the underdog podcast over nine other nominees, including popular competitors such as “The Tim Ferriss Show” and National Public Radio’s “Planet Money.”
“To say that I’m surprised is an understate-
ment,” Saul-Sehy said. “Out of all the shows that we were up against, our show has the least number of listeners. I can say that very confidently.”
“Stacking Benjamins” presents personal finance news and tips with a playful tone and an emphasis on building a community of listeners. Saul-Sehy’s co-host is known only as “the O.G.”— short for other guy—the podcast is said to be recorded in “Joe’s mom’s basement,” and the announcer is called “Joe’s mom’s neighbor.”
“The show has a warm setting to make money friendly. Our characters mess up with their money and share mistakes often to show that even pros get it wrong sometimes,” the podcast’s website states.
New episodes are posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and listeners download about 100,000 episodes a week.
The basement is a fiction, as the various cast and crew members collaborate via the internet from places across the country including Dallas, Detroit, St. Louis, Oklahoma and Portland, Ore. Saul-Sehy and his local producer Richie Rutter-Reece record his portion in his living room.
Saul-Sehy said he hopes the award will attract more listeners to the show.
“We had new advertisers and advertising agencies all over us last night, so that was exciting, too,” he said Thursday.
Saul-Sehy is president of Partnership for the Pathway, a Texarkana nonprofit devoted to building walking and running trails in the Twin Cities.
A podcast is an audio program available on demand via the internet. Sixty-seven million Americans listen to a podcast monthly, according to a recent Edison Research study.
On Twitter: @RealKarlRichter